I heard the waters roll slowly
by Belle of Books
Summary: They make it to the ocean, and out of the wreckage of destruction and under the gaze of the autumn moon, build a partnership and reach unspoken understandings.


They finally reach the shore.

In the years that follow, Clarke can never remember the all important _how _of their escape. She remembers fierce white walls and a haunting sense of danger; she can recall the IV and the drugs and the haze that accompanied them. She thinks she stabbed a guard with an IV...but mostly just remembers white. She can't remember the questions, the interrogations, the never-ending pain. She can't recall the men standing in front of her, clipboards in hand, writing and evaluating her motions, her pleas, her pain. (It's probably for the best that she forgets.)

After they find each other, stumbling through the woods, scared and white, Bellamy tries to ask, attempts to understand. Her eyes glaze over; he quickly learns not to ask. He and Finn try to piece together a fragmented narrative of what happened, asking Monty and Jasper and Raven and whoever can remember. They learn enough to know that they need to move (he will never admit to the overwhelming fear in his heart at their silence, at their disorientation). He and Finn push past the pain from their burns and make what's left of the original 100 move (_march_, he insists, over and over).

They walk for days, Bellamy watching Clarke as she stares at him when she thinks he can't see her (he always sees her, _always_). She looks at him bewildered (scared?), like she can't understand how he's standing, ordering, _alive_. As they march, he notices as she stops herself from watching him, straightens her spine, and walks with larger strides. He can't decide if he's grateful she's getting better or worried about her walls.

* * *

They reach the shore early one morning, just as the sun began to sweep across the horizon.

And it is everything. It thunders and crashes, it impresses and frightens; Bellamy has never been more lost for words (_what is Earth_, he thinks).

Clarke hates and adores the sea in equal measure; it is fierce-it mocks her and humbles her (she is in awe of its majesty and fathomless expanse). Her artist's heart weeps from the beauty of the streaks of color across the horizon and the reflections in the water below. She wants to collapse on the ground and stare with starved eyes at the beauty she has only seen in books (she has imagined for so long). She stands, outwardly firm and determined, as her eyes absorb every detail of the rising sun; she notes the red and the gold, and the fiercely colored ocean waves as the rays dance across the sea (there is nothing more beautiful).

But her leader's head worries, seconds after absorbing the beauty; she sees the challenges, the dangers in the expanse and cannot help but be anxious. She looks for Bellamy and reads his eyes, can see that the unpredictability worries him as well. He doesn't know how to defend his (_their)_ people against its crashing, thundering waters. His fear makes him fierce.

She wants to be afraid of the look on his face, the fearsome determination spreading across his wrinkled brow and his clenched jaw. She stares at his face and his darkened eyes; she thinks that he has never looked _more_. His face is highlighted in golden rays, every youthful freckle is clear for her to see. Clarke pushes aside her fear and reaches for his hand, shaking him from his scrutiny. He looks at her, and she can see his confusion. She will be anxious later, but one of them must be brave (it really is beautiful). She tugs on his hand, and he grasps it like he is walk towards the water and join the others who have already run ahead and jumped in the waves. Clarke wants to yell at them for their foolish exuberance but can't bring herself to yell the words and issue the order.

* * *

They move inland. They both know that it would be dangerous and idiotic to remain too close to shore, so ignoring the protests of indignant teenagers, they push the group onward to a clearing that they believe can become a home. The older few can see the danger of the approaching winter; every day becomes chillier, and they have nothing to protect themselves from the approaching elements. Bellamy can remember stories of winter, of deprivation and starvation, and this earth is even more foreboding and unwelcoming than the earth of his stories.

* * *

As they build and begin to live, Clarke looks for him, always unsure if she is dreaming a drug-induced mirage. Whenever she can't find him, she begins to choke like she has been hit in the face with salty ocean waves. He is her anchor, her strength and reassurance.

He watches her when she isn't looking. He has lost his mother, his sister (his life); yet, somehow, when he looks at her, he doesn't feel as alone (he doesn't stop to think about it, to question his feelings).

He argues with her, and she with him. They push every button, and he watches as her eyes spark (he wants to smile).

They argue and disagree and fight like children at play-and from their exertion and frustration and from the ashes of utter destruction and despair, a community (a _home_) begins to form again.

* * *

There's a wall between them and a chain tying them together. They can never be apart, and one will never let the other get too close. But they keep on; they forge a deeper partnership-one for which they have no precedent but that is built on the wreckage of an impossible decision to save the many at the expense of the beloved two (she wakes in the dead of night sometimes, trembling in fear and guilt). Their partnership is created, decision by decision, on the never forgotten recollections of a chancellor in charge, of the pain of parental loss, of divisions by class and purported community value.

Clarke learns to sacrifice and listen (has learned the painful cost and necessity of defense). Bellamy learns humility and patience (has learned to appreciate the value of the whole).

They depend on each other. That's all.

* * *

They start to go to the beach together in the evenings.

They need privacy, they say. They can't get it in camp, they insist. So they walk along the path toward the ocean in silence, and walk along the shore, discussing the camp's needs (never their own) and what their plans are and should be. They listen to the crashing waves, the predictable rhythm of the earth and find comfort together.

Sometimes one of them will go to the beach alone. One will walk and think, but the ocean seems impenetrable and it's waves mock the loneliness of their existence.

Neither lasts long alone.

* * *

Bellamy decides that they don't have enough food and there's isn't enough game near by. He begins to gather a hunting party, and Clarke refuses to let them go.

They have a fight, one of their biggest, and everyone is scared of the outcome. They creep around camp, and listen to the yelling words coming from the tent. After what seems like hours, Bellamy flings the tent's flap aside and storms out, snaps at the hunters to gather their weapons and a few days supplies. They leave in an hour, and a week later have not returned.

Everyone in camp is worried, and everyone is avoiding Clarke. She storms around camp like one of Bellamy's mythical goddesses of lore, and they all fear for him.

(He just led the party too far; they had a stretch of good luck in hunting and he decides to extend the trip. He considers her anger but decides that the food is worth it.)

* * *

She is angry and worried and _alone_. She retreats to the beach where the waves echo her concerns and the pounding exacerbates her fears. She looks over the darkening waters as the sun sets behind her, and she worries.

She waits on the shore, although she knows not why she stays.

And she hears them. The measured footsteps that are so familiar, even in the muted surface of the sand. She closes her eyes, and she wants to weep and yell in equal measure. She feels him draw close and keeps her face turned toward the water; he cautiously lowers himself to the damp ground beside her and presses his elbow to hers. They sit in silence, too many words to fill the space between them.

She rises from the ground and walks toward the waves, and she hears him come closer. Clarke turns and faces him and waits as he draws near. He slowly, oh so slowly, moves to stand in front of her; she can feel his breath on her face and hears the sound of the waves and senses the warmth of his body and feels the coolness of the air, and it is all too, too much. She can't bear it all, and her eyes fall shut and she squeezes them together and tries to breathe.

When she opens her eyes and tilts up her head, he is staring at her-his big brown eyes full of everything he is afraid to say and everything she is scared to hear. He towers over her (she never knew he was so tall) but she is his equal. She breathes in through her lips and he looks to her mouth. They stand still, not touching, just standing, waiting, in the electrifyingly cool autumn air. Before she can breathe again, he has taken her into his arms. He envelopes her, and he is the only thing in the world. After only a moment, she reciprocates, grabs him, presses him to her. He leans his cheek on the top of her head, and they hold each other by the crashing waves under the watchful gaze of the autumn moon.

They stay on the beach all night, whispering apologies and promises. They fall asleep together, his arm under her head, for the first time (but not the last, he promises himself). When she wakes in the morning, she expects to find him awake. But instead he sleeps, his face and hair highlighted by the rising sun like the first day they arrived on those same sandy shores. She props herself up on her elbow and stares at his face, gently pushes a dark lock away from his brow. She looks at his youthful face, and she smiles.

She sits up, and reaches down to nudge him awake. He stretches and gives her a sleepy grin, and she is happy.

* * *

"And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores, I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to me, whispering, to congratulate me, For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night, In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me, And his arm lay lightly around my breast-and that night I was happy."

-Excerpt from "When I Heard at the Close of Day," by Walt Whitman


End file.
